This invention relates to radiotelephones and, in particular, to radiotelephones having multiple telephone number identities.
In a typical radiotelephone, the radiotelephone includes a radiotelephone transceiver which receives radiotelephone signals from and transmits radiotelephone signals to a radiotelephone telephone system in which the radiotelephone is situated. The radiotelephone transceiver is controlled by a radiotelephone controller, usually including a program driven microprocessor and a memory.
In a standard radiotelephone, the radiotelephone controller controls the radiotelephone transceiver to receive and transmit control signals on one or more control channels of the radiotelephone system. One type of control signal is a paging signal which is broadcast by the radiotelephone system to initiate an incoming call to a radiotelephone. Another type of control signal is an access signal which is transmitted by a radiotelephone into the system to initiate an outgoing call from the radiotelephone.
Each paging signal and each access signal includes identifying data or information which is used to identify the particular radiotelephone associated with the signal. In particular, each such signal includes a telephone number identity (TNI) which identifies the radiotelephone in terms of a telephone number or routing number in the radiotelephone system.
The TNI of a radiotelephone is usually stored in the memory of the radiotelephone controller and is retrieved for processing of each paging signal received by the radiotelephone transceiver and for generating each access signal to be transmitted by the transceiver. When a paging signal is received by a radiotelephone transceiver, the transceiver couples the paging signal to the radiotelephone controller. The radiotelephone controller then extracts from the paging signal the TNI carried by the paging signal and also retrieves from its memory the TNI of its radiotelephone and compares the two TNIs. If a match is found, the radiotelephone controller recognizes that the paging signal is for it and that the call associated with the paging signal is for its radiotelephone. Accordingly, the radiotelephone controller causes the radiotelephone transceiver to transmit a response signal into the radiotelephone system so that the call connection process to the radiotelephone can be continued and completed.
As can be appreciated, with the above standard radiotelephone, the radiotelephone has only a single TNI and thus can only respond to paging signals, i.e., incoming calls, and generate access signals, i.e., initiate outgoing calls, based on this single TNI. In order to add more flexibility to the standard radiotelephone, modifications to the radiotelephone have been made which permit the radiotelephone to operate based on multiple TNIs. In these modified radiotelephones, user switches on the radiotelephone permit the user to select which one of the multiple TNIs is to be active for the radiotelephone and, therefore, to be retrieved from its memory in connection with the processing of incoming paging signals and the generating of outgoing access signals. Accordingly, once the user selects a particular TNI, the radiotelephone will only use this TNI for processing all incoming and outgoing calls. Radiotelephones of this type are disclosed, for example, is U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,734,928 and 5,020,091.
More particularly, in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,734,928 a radiotelephone with multiple TNIs is disclosed in which a user can manually select different telephone numbers for use with different radiotelephone systems or for use with outgoing and incoming calls. In the U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,091, the radiotelephone prompts a user when the user moves into a different telephone system, and the user can manually select the TNI assigned to that system. However, these radiotelephones still have limited application, since, at any given time, a radiotelephone is automatically active for only a single, manually selected TNI.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a radiotelephone having an improved and more flexible ability to take on TNIs.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a radiotelephone meeting the aforesaid object and which is further adapted for use in a radiotelephone system as disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/114,648 assigned to the same assignee hereof.